Transcript
NO TITLE The tiers of La County's Men's Central Jail. 3100 and 3300 high power modules were held in suspense and terror of the consequences that were going to fall upon the population of inmates that night. The terror was in-their-face personal as the screams of their peers echoed through out the entire module. It was mentally petrifying and heart achingly antagonizing to be any of the ones after the first the deputies would extract out their cells brutalizing harshly. The ethos of the population was tired, exhausted of the abuses to the humanity of those in the high power module. The only peace they had to comfort them was the resolution of standing for what was right and humane. Cell by cell, the Deputies would go ordering the prisoner confined within, the one man, cell to give up that nights dinner food tray, cuff up and allow themselves to be escorted out the module. Most refused, those were harmed physically; but all those inmates left forever changed by what transpired that night. Besides the broken necks, the fractures bones, the maiming and crippling of the limbs, the intentional mutilations and even the shattered tail bone of this writer. - the psychological, emotional [harm?] is an irreparable remnant of that nights events. What would cause such extreme measures on both the parts of the prisoners and the deputies? What atrocity would require one mindfully forfeiting their safety from harm or even the risk of death? To under the mind set of the prisoner in that extreme circumstance, is to ask what would you give to maintain possession of your humanity? That night was merely the climax to the atrocities of a depraved hatefilled administration that brood under the watch of disgraced Sheriff Lee Baca. That night was the stand to no longer tolerate the abuses that were inflicted by the authority, the Deputy, who misused the authority granted to them by their employer to exploit the bad repoir of being incarcerated and the structure of the high power module, where the inmates were handcuffed everywhere out their cell, to brutalize them. Many times the population, from their cells, were able to hear the screams of their peers; the strategically yelling of the cops, "Give us your hands. Give us your hands!", - followed by the distinctive snap sound of a bone being broken and the laughs of the Sheriff Deputies. Thus, what choice did the inmates have available? Such atrocity is only deserving of rebellion. Which translated that night to the cell [extractions?]. None of the, many, inmates involved walked away. Indeed, the gurney awaited them outside their door like the purpose was to teach them to never dare question the Deputies' misconduct. Which, indeed, translates in to the most harmful institutions of the system: to repress the scoundrel of lower class orginance with the ideological enthused propaganda that being found guilty, or in that case being accused of a crime, somehow justifies inhumanity. Maybe that's what motivated the deputies to act so definitely foul and inhumane toward the inmates. The assaults didn't suddenly cease with the conclusion of that nights events. It took years to topple over that place of so despicable conduct towards human beings. There were alot of denials - like always. There was alot of blaming the temperament of the prisoners, like always. But their, the deputies, reign of terror ended with an exposure of undeniable footage from a phone smuggle into the jail by a federal agent and indictment on seventeen deputy-sheriffs and Sheriff Lee Baca. Thus, the terror in the air that night was merely a dispersing fog that kept us in the suspense of that moment before it opened up in to a brighter sunnier day for those that would later spend time awaiting trial or a flee [plea?] bargain in whatever cases the courts held them in custody for. It was nasty. The writer knows no such terror than what he felt that night as the deputies went cell to cell inflicting mutilation on the population who dared oppose them. But the beauty in the solidarity that was required of those gang members set at odds against each other racially and as well gang affiliatedly was a treasure that changed his perspective in the potential of every human being who learns that we indeed fasten and cultivate the type of world we want to live in. That's the human struggle - not just the prisoners. Peter Sierra [ID]
